Obama vs. McCain on healthcare

This is a pretty good analysis of the differing health care plans by the canidates. After hearing it on the air, it is quite evident that both plans leave much to be desired and neither one of them promises every thing you have heard them stump about...

[i]Though John McCain and Barack Obama agree that America's health care system needs reform, the candidates differ markedly in their vision of the remedy.

Political scientist Jonathan Oberlander offers an in-depth comparison of the Obama and McCain health proposals. Oberland compared the candidates in his report, "The Partisan Divide — The McCain and Obama Plans for U.S. Health Care Reform," which was published Aug. 21, 2008 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Oberlander is an associate professor of social medicine and health policy and administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[/i]

Oberlander says the McCain and Obama plans would essentially move the system in exactly opposite directions.

"While Sen. Obama wants to build on top of the employer-sponsored insurance system, Sen. McCain wants to build away from it and move more people to the individual insurance market," he said.

In fact, says Oberlander, in many ways the current debate reminds him of the movie Groundhog Day — except he keeps waking up and thinking it's 1992.

"The stock Democratic health reform solution, before Bill Clinton changed it, was a play-or-pay employer mandate, and that's exactly what Barack Obama has," Oberlander says. "And in 1992, the favorite GOP solution was tax credits to buy private health insurance. So, a lot of things have happened in 16 years; the health care system is much worse than it was, but we pretty much have the same solutions that we've always had."

Obama's plan, as noted in the link, very possibly could make it worse, and more companies will drop their plans in favor of the cheaper government sponsored plan that they don't pay for, but pay a tax on....

[quote author=SONA link=topic=9906.msg159496#msg159496 date=1220396409]Obama's plan, as noted in the link, very possibly could make it worse, and more companies will drop their plans in favor of the cheaper government sponsored plan that they don't pay for, but pay a tax on....[/quote]

he could improve that plan by making it impossible for companies to drop plans already in placeanyone can see that would be the thing to do

[quote author=blessyou link=topic=9906.msg159041#msg159041 date=1220379099]Give Mcbush a couple of weeks and he'll do a complete FLIP-FLOP.Remember McCain - Feinberg?Remember McCain - Kennedy?Remember when he was AGAINST the Bush tax cuts before he became FOR them?

[quote author=e-mom link=topic=9906.msg159791#msg159791 date=1220404678][quote author=SONA link=topic=9906.msg159496#msg159496 date=1220396409]Obama's plan, as noted in the link, very possibly could make it worse, and more companies will drop their plans in favor of the cheaper government sponsored plan that they don't pay for, but pay a tax on....[/quote]

he could improve that plan by making it impossible for companies to drop plans already in placeanyone can see that would be the thing to do[/quote]

It could also be improved by making it impossible for them to downwardly adjust benefits of existing policy holders while raising premiums.

Hey..I know....you know how the cops get to keep the cash from the drug busts to finance drug fighting equipment....we can bust the 30 million illegals and confiscate their cash to pay the hospitals out of a kitty when a patient shows up that needs emergency care and has no way to pay for it. Problem fixed.

We can prevent more illegals by digging a moat on the mexican border and widen the rio grande and fill it with the sharks eating tourists in florida, use the dirt to fix the levys in N'yawlins By that time we have stabilized the alien burdened health care system, opened up jobs for the homeless and unemployed, made florida coasts safe again and prevented flooding on bourbon street and the gulf coast casino trade....tax base increases, national debt reduced....and we still couldn't afford gas prices which is the biggest economic blight we face in this country today.

I'm for getting the government out of it all. Government has not made better: heath care, the mortgage industry, education, transportation....There are too many fingers steering money for votes.

cw

Government is not a mechanism to Prosperity [b]Our constitutional ignorance -- perhaps contempt, coupled with the fact that we've become a nation of wimps, sissies and supplicants -- has made us easy prey for Washington's tyrannical forces[/b]

I'm for getting the government out of it all. Government has not made better: heath care, the mortgage industry, education, transportation....There are too many fingers steering money for votes.cw[/quote]

Oh, and the PRIVATE SECTOR has done [i]so much better[/i] with health care and mortgages and education. ::) Riiiiight. THAT'S WHY so many Americans can actually AFFORD private insurance! And THAT'S WHY so many people have lost their homes! It's all because of the government!

He claims that a shift to electronic medical records will help save families up to $2,500 a year in his first term. Independent experts say that's wishful thinking. SummaryObama says his health care plan will garner large savings – $120 billion a year, or $2,500 per family – with more than half coming from the use of electronic health records. And he says he’ll make that happen in his first term. We find his statements to be overly optimistic, misleading and, to some extent, contradicted by one of his own advisers. And it masks the true cost of his plan to cover millions of Americans who now have no health insurance. http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_inflated_health_savings.html